From the Upanishads - Advaita Vision

279 Pages·2003·0.52 MB·English

by  Ananda Wood

From the
UPANISHADS
ANANDA WOOD
Modified version 2000
Copyright 1996 by Ananda Wood
Prepared by: Ananda Wood
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Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
From the Aitareya Upanishad
Self-questioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Realization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
From the Katha Upanishad
Death and ‘the unconscious’ . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Self-discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Desire and enquiry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Perception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Dissipation and purity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
The living self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
The principle of individuality . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Living energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Self-purification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Meditation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Understanding truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
The ‘I’-principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
From the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
Non-duality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Prayer for truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Self and the absolute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
The source of experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Mind, speech and life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Names, forms and acts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Cosmic faith and truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Immanent and transcendent . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Self and reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
A contest of learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
A last settlement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
The essence of personality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
iv Contents
From the Chandogya Upanishad
Change and space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Personality and consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . 99
The principle of light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Reality and self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Sacrifice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Subjective and objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
The self in everyone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Where knowledge comes from . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Learning and knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Change and self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
In search of self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
From the Kena Upanishad
The unmoved mover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Desire’s end . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
From the Kaushitaki Upanishad
For and against . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Each being’s self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
The basis of mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
The living principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Continuing truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
The knowing self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Deep sleep and waking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
From the Isha Upanishad
Centre and source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
From the Prashna Upanishad
Matter and life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Living faculties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Learning from experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
What lives in sleep? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Contemplation and its results . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Human existence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Contents v
From the Mundaka Upanishad
Knowing and being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Complete knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Good acts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
The unborn source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
The unmoved centre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Ego, self and truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Attainment to the impersonal . . . . . . . . 191
From the Mandukya Upanishad
The word ‘Om’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
From the Taittiriya Upanishad
Complete reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Levels of appearance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Nothingness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
The creator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Kinds of happiness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Non-dual consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Asking for truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Sustenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
From the Shvetashvatara Upanishad
Underlying Cause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Subtle powers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Mental discipline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Ego and self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
The universal ‘Lord’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
The unborn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Universal and individual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Immanent and transcendent . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
From the Rig Veda
Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Preface
Do we know anything that is plainly and simply true, without any of the ‘ifs’
and ‘buts’ that complicate everything we perceive through our limited and
uncertain personalities?
And is it thus possible to find any common basis of knowledge on which
we can always rely, no matter what particular conditions and uncertainties
surround our little bodies, senses and minds in a much larger universe?
The Upanishads are early texts that describe just such an enquiry into plain
truth. However, there are two problems which complicate our understanding
of these texts today.
First, they were composed at a time when knowledge was largely expressed
in the imaginative metaphors of myth and ritual. Thus, along with their philo-
sophical enquiry, the Upanishads also describe an archaic mythical and ritual
context. It is from this archaic context that the enquiry was made, in times
that are now long passed.
And second, as the founding texts of a very old philosophical tradition,
they are expressed in a highly condensed way: which leaves them rather
open to interpretation and explanation. The condensed statements of the
Upanishads were called ‘shruti’ or ‘heard’; because they were meant to be
learned by hearing them directly from a living teacher, who would recite and
interpret the words. Having received such a statement of condensed philo-
sophical teaching, a student was meant to think about it over and over again,
through a sustained process of individual reflection and enquiry. Eventually,
after passing through many stages of thinking and rethinking the questions
involved, the student was meant to come at last to a thorough and independ-
ent understanding of the statement, in his or her own right.
In the two and a half thousand years or more since the Upanishads began
to be composed, their original statements have been interpreted and explained
in many different ways, through many different schools of thought. Some
schools have emphasized a religious approach to truth, through devotion to a
worshipped God. Some schools have emphasized a mystical approach, through
exercises of meditation that cultivate special states of experience beyond the
ordinary limitations of our minds. And some schools emphasize a philosophi-
cal approach, through reasoned enquiry into common experience.
viii Preface
i
This book is focused on the philosophical approach. It follows Shr Shanka-
a i A a
ra’s Advaita Ved nta tradition, as interpreted by Shr tm nanda, a modern
advaita philosopher who lived in Kerala State, India, 1883-1959.
The book is a collection of retellings from selected passages of the Upan-
ishads. In these retellings, the rather compressed ideas of the original texts
have been freely interpreted and elaborated, and often modified, to make
them more accessible to a modern reader. Naturally, there is a price to be paid
for such interpretation and modification. Since traditional ideas have thus
been freely expressed in modern terms, the reader should understand that the
retellings differ somewhat in their manner of expression from the traditional
approach that is found in the originals.
For those who are interested in the original texts, a companion volume,
called Interpreting the Upanishads, shows how particular concepts and pas-
sages have been interpreted in the retellings. For each passage discussed in
the companion volume, a cross reference is given in a footnote at the begin-
ning of the relevant retelling.
Hence this book and its companion volume form a pair, with cross-refer-
ences between them. However, each volume can be read quite independently
of the other.
Like the original texts, the book is perhaps best read as an anthology of
collected passages. Because of their condensed expression, the Upanishads
are meant to be thought about selectively, concentrating attention on one
passage at a time. In various different passages, the same fundamental prin-
ciples are approached again and again, in various different ways. Thus, one
is free to pick out a particular passage that suits one’s interests and one’s state
of mind at the time.
The trick is to avoid confusing the differing approaches through which the
Upanishads ask different questions about one common truth. Then one can
concentrate on those particular passages and those particular questions that
hold one’s attention sufficiently for the hard thinking that the subject re-
quires.
From the Aitareya Upanishad
Self-questioning
Without me here, to know experience,
how could this experience be?
And how do I continue on?
If it’s by speech that words are said,
if odours are perceived by smell …
if sights are seen by sense of vision,
sounds are heard by sense of hearing,
feelings felt by sense of touch,
and thoughts conceived by changing mind …
if thoughts and sense-perceptions are
absorbed within by understanding,
and appearances are formed
by mind’s expressive thoughts and acts …
from
then who, or what, am I? 1.3.11
2 Aitareya
Realization
That which was born sees many things;
but what is here that’s alien?
What does one really want to say?
By asking questions in this way,
the principle we each call ‘I’
and absolute reality,
pervading all experience,
are realized as: ‘This alone from
that, truly, I have always known.’ 1.3.13